Hardware Overclocking Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 460

Nice article but when are we gonna see....

GTX 460 1gb sli versus HD 5850 crossfire

Gtx 460 1gb sli overclocked versus HD 5850 crossfire overclocked

Stalker Call of Pripyat, BFBC2, Crysis, Dirt 2, Arma II: Operation Arrowhead, Metro 2033

all with current drivers as this would help a lot of gamers determine their next purchase of GPU's

Thanks

 

Yea I agree. I want to see the performance of these babies in sli, and possibly a guide on multi card overclocking. I wonder what these things would do on water....

Great article btw.

Have Fun!
-SPNKR

 

+1 for more benchmarks than just Crysis, which is traditionally a nVidia loving gaming anyway.

 

Seems that 1100 mV trips the voltage protection, there are a few overclocks running at 1080 mV and getting over 1000MHz on the core. Unreal. http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=4479034&postcount=262

 

would be nice to see the ati cards oc'd also just to get an idea of what the performance is like for the money

this is a one sided show =] nice though.. but it's not showing the cards on the same system pushed to thier limits for a good comparison

 

Thanks for putting the price of the cards next to the benchmarks.

Please do this all the time from now on.

I've always wondered why you never did this.

 

I'll wait for another, more thorough review that tests at 1080p and includes Arma2.

 

You're absolutely right - I quite often have my cards running in excess of 1300MB usage. If I go beyond ~1526, framerates nosedive (e.g. Fallout 3 goes to SPF rather than FPS for VATS at times) or worse (unexpected restart).

 

A small disclaimer before this post - I wrote this article on work experience

IIRC the overclocked GTX460 loaded at between 300 and 350w (full system) and the temperature was 68C on afterburner, not sure about the delta-t because I didn't measure ambient. Safe to assume it's low, though.

I agree, but there were technical issues with that. Whilst Crysis and DiRT 2 are timedemos, where they are repeatable and are just 'press go, wait', Stalker and BC2 are much more complicated, not having timedemos - they need to be played through many times in a very repeatable way until similar results are found, and to do that would require one of the normal bit-tech team - they all had their own articles to be working on!

I agree - it would be useful.

In terms of the clock speeds, I agree with you - they could pretty easily run at least the 1GB version at least at a higher clock speed (750MHz+).

Shader wise, I'm not so sure. Using this number of shaders allows them to maximise yields - it means they have the most GPUs available to them at any one time and don't have to bin as many chips.

Disagree - according to the Steam Survey over 80% of gamers have a resolution of 1680x1050 or below. Nevertheless, I also did benchmarks for 1920x1200, which you can find at the bottom of this post. Unfortunately, other cards won't be included, but you can compare using the normal review.

The problem is that previous low/medium memory cards have not aged nearly as well. The best example is the 320MB 8800gts, which was soon passed in terms of graphics speed in comparison to the 640MB brother. It's not that it wasn't a solid choice, just that it was a bit risky for the long run. Personally, I'd recommend either, but I'd go for the 1GB if I had the money. The price is sneaking upwards due to simple supply/demand. People want the card, so they're jacking up the price for a greater profit. It's not really a ripoff, just capitalism at work.

In 2007 CPC was saying how crap 512MB and 1GB cards were at games and how you didn't really need more than 256MB. From late 2007 you'd want at least 512MB (for example the 8800gt 512 was measurably faster ingame than the 8800gt 256). Remember, people once said that computers would never need more than 640kb ram.

Arma2 is currently not on the bit-tech benchmark suite, so if you are looking for it here at least you'll be waiting for a long time.

1080p wise, you can look at this spreadsheet for my raw results. It's 1920x1200, but it's very similar.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?...01DbmFqOHFIYld4bEhIRlE&hl=en&authkey=COXPzOIK

 

i think you guys are missing the point here. this wasnt a typical review/comparison. this was a straight forward oc article and the resulting fps on the most demanding game that has an actual ownership/following interest worth writing it for.

draw your own conclusions based on the percentage of increased performance against what other reviews there may be out there against whatever cards there may be.

sure it would be nice to see those things, but it would also "be nice" to see my wife give it up more than 1-2 times a week...or krikkit actually beat me on some benchmarks...or an actor/actress that can actually act...doesn't mean we're going to

 

But game performance can vary greatly with different cards. Just because Crysis particularly likes overclocks, I still think it worth while to try it with at least two other games, just to give a more accurate representation of the true benefit.

 

Thanks for your detailed reply Bakes, its good to see some different and new talent at Bit, hopefully the work experience could lead to something for you in the future.

I agree on the memory aspect especially with both graphics vendors now supporting multi monitor gaming. However, I would say that both cards have their place quite nicely. The 768mb is perfect for 1680x1050 or below whilst the 1GB model can easily keep pace with a GTX470 up to 1920x1080 and possibly even as far as 2560*1600.

For multi monitor gaming though it does look like you need more than 1GB of memory, well at least if you are running a nvidia card anyway.

 

Greetings!

Problem with invoking the Steam Survey is that with the same reasoning, all tests should have been done with Windows XP 32bits (~33%), with less than 4GB RAM (~67%), using a dual-core CPU (~57%), ...

The current standard resolution in gaming monitors is 1920x1080, if you look at Junes Steam Survey it also has the largest adoption rate increase (+0,90%). Over the next 12 months it will become the predominant resolution* (specially considering the current low prices on FullHD monitors), and that is still on the lifetime of the GTX460.

Point is, a significant number of GTX460 owners will game at 1920x1080. Can an overclocked GTX460 handle it?
Analysing the sheet you provided, it seems that at Very High, no.

Could you then provide the links to the articles where Bit-tech overclocked the GTX465, HD5850 and HD5770?

*PS:

 

I'd really like to get the opportunity to test the mythical 2GB GTX460's when they're released, see if they make any real difference. I suspect that it will help, but framerates still won't be great because the core won't be fast enough to do all the calculations to maintain a 40+fps. Still, it should take it out of system RAM swapping/single FPS territory and into high teens/low 20's instead... perhaps.

 

what? do people just make stuff up before actually researching? crysis likes overclocks? lolz...show me a review where crysis had the biggest percentage increase in fps over any other game? you won't because the game is brutal, period. yes, some games favor nvidia, some favor ati. again, that's not the point of this review. if crysis showed a 10% increase in fps from an oc, believe me, so would every other game...minimum...

are we all going mental? the standard is what has the most market share...because you say its 1920x1080 that makes it so? ok...the market standard is 1680x1050 and below, that's what has the majority of the market...

 

Greetings!

Buying a new monitor, who will not buy a 1920x1080 one?
That is the current standard.

1680x1050 and lower resolutions monitors are just the installed base. There will always be a considerable amount of monitors resolutions bellow 1920x1080 because of laptops.

 

Yes, but buying a new graphics card does not mean you also buy a new monitor. As I said, I did also test at 1920x1200.

 

ok, so i am confused, are you saying that 1920x1080 is the market standard or the market trend? do you know the difference?

i would definitely buy that rez when i get a new monitor or higher, but that doesnt make it the standard.

 

oops

 

Whoah, don't get your knickers in a twist. I was merely re-iterating what bit-tech said ("...as Crysis... typically reacts well to graphics card overclocks"), and saying it doesn't mean you shouldn't test with any other games, even if the statement is true.